


Quantum Decoherence

by onvavoir



Series: Teumessian Fox [6]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-06
Updated: 2015-05-06
Packaged: 2018-03-28 20:32:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3868849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onvavoir/pseuds/onvavoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's only one person who can tell Matt whether Bucky is who he says he is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quantum Decoherence

**Author's Note:**

> Basing the dynamic in this scene on [this prompt](http://daredevilkink.dreamwidth.org/725.html?thread=40405#cmt40405), and because I can.

There's a long list of reasons why Matt shouldn't be standing outside this apartment, but at the top of it is the fact that he has no idea what he's going to say. He has his pretence, of course, but it's paper thin, and past the point of easily imagined small talk, everything is blank. He rolls his shoulders back and knocks on the door. It opens, and a large man leans against the frame.

"Captain Rogers?"

"Can I help you with something?

"I'm sorry to drop by. I was in the n--neighbourhood, and I thought I would try my luck. Matt Murdock, Nelson and Murdock. I was hoping to speak to you about your um... reappearance. We have a case... a client of ours was declared legally dead-- it's a long story. House, bank accounts, all of them were all passed to his brother when he 'died,' but now he's trying to reclaim his property."

"I see. Uh, come in?"

Matt walks through the opened door and waits with one arm outstretched. After a moment, Rogers offers his elbow, and Matt curls his hand around the arm. It's alarmingly muscular. He can hear the strain on the seams of the t-shirt. Maybe he should try wearing a larger size. Matt smells his shampoo, hair product, and a soap made with tea tree oil, the scent of cotton jersey and denim. Rogers's bare feet make quiet rubbing noises on the hardwood floor.

He leads Matt into the faded smell of previously cooked meals and the reverberation of sound off cabinets, the hum of the refrigerator. He's calm, but vigilant. No trace of pity for the blind guy. It's refreshing. There's something else-- Matt tilts his head and lets in the almost imperceptible frequency.

"Something wrong?"

Matt holds a finger to his lips and points up, in the general direction of the sound. There's a light fixture on the ceiling, a stupidly obvious place, but given that Matt can hear the bug, it clearly wasn't planted by the best and brightest. He hadn't planned to lead with the super-sensitive hearing, but if there's anything he's learned by now, it's that making plans is like trying to play cards in a hurricane. Whoever planted it does not need to know about Bucky, and he imagines Captain Rogers would agree.

"No, uh, nothing. Just a little starstruck, I guess."

"Don't be. I'm just a kid from Brooklyn."

Modest, waving away the flattery, but still alert and watching very closely as Matt takes his computer and refreshing display out of his bag and puts them on the table. 

"Let me just get my things set up. Do you mind if we record this?"

"... no. Of course not. Although I don't think I'll be much help."

Matt types as quickly as he can and then turns the screen to face Rogers. He hears the clench of jaw muscles.

_Bug. In the light fixture. Not a very good one._

"Here, let me get that for you," Rogers says, and stands up.

"No no, I don't want to be any trouble."

"It's no trouble at all."

Rogers walks out of the room and then returns with something in his hand. He steps up onto a chair and holds it close to the light fixture. Presses a button. Matt can't quite figure out what it's doing, but when Rogers steps down, his heart rate has dropped. He sighs.

"It's okay." Rustle of fabric-- he holds up the thing in his hand, then catches himself. "Ah. Sorry. It's made for this sort of thing. A kind of micro-EMP. I didn't expect to get so much use out of it."

Matt nods. He gropes at the chair behind him and waits for Rogers to sit down, hands folded in front of him. For a moment he can sense Rogers just looking at him, sizing him up and likely assessing whether he's a threat. Matt sits still and pretends he has no idea. As finely-honed as his abilities are, he really doesn't like his chances going _mano a mano_ with Captain America.

"Would you mind telling me what this is all about?" Rogers asks. "What it's _really_ about, since if you're a lawyer you must know that I was declared Missing in Action by the military, and that makes my situation completely irrelevant to your case."

He can't help it-- he smiles.

"Captain Rogers--"

"Steve. Please."

"Steve," Matt corrects. "I wasn't sure you'd speak to me if I told you why I was here. I'm sorry for that."

"And why are you here?"

A trace of impatience.

"Because I want to know what happened to Bucky Barnes."

Silence drops in the room like an inverted bomb: imploding stillness. 

"Bucky Barnes is dead."

"I think we both know better than that."

Steve's heart races, and the tendons in his hands groan a little as he clenches his fists. His voice is quiet but no less menacing for it.

"Mr. Murdock, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

He breathes in and out slowly through his nose, and for a moment Matt considers doing as he's told. The rise of his skin temperature indicates that he's on the verge of being very angry. Even if Matt didn't know he was Captain America, the carriage of his body and the grace and immense strength in it would be intimidating.

"Two minutes, that's all I need. I'll tell you anything you want to know about me, just please, listen."

A fingertip taps on the table.

"Are you actually--"

"Blind? Yes, I am. An accident when I was a kid. You can look it up."

The muted taps and rubs of fingers on a touchscreen. Matt waits.

"Nelson and Murdock," Steve murmurs. The phone clatters onto the table. "What does this have to do with Bucky Barnes?"

Even if Matt couldn't hear his heartbeat, he'd be able to tell that Steve is a terrible liar. The way his heart and breathing speed up when he says the name-- that's too intense a response for someone who thinks his childhood best friend is long dead. Matt supposes it comes easier to some people than others. 

Fuck it.

"I might as well tell you everything. I'm the man who captured Wilson Fisk."

Steve leans forward, creak of chair and a microbreeze against Matt's face.

" _You're_ the Devil of Hell's Kitchen? _You're_ Daredevil? But how would you-- do you have some kind of kinesthesis?"

Smart man, Steve Rogers.

"I  _am_  blind," he says. "But it's more than that. The accident left me with intensified senses. I can hear, smell, feel things, more keenly than other people."

"That sounds terrible. And the martial arts?"

Matt laughs. "Well, that's training."

"I see. I hope you're not insulted, but--"

"I know how it sounds. But your heart rate took a drastic jump when I mentioned Bucky's name. Like it did just now."

"You can hear it."

"Like I heard the bug in the ceiling. I can smell the eggs you had for breakfast and tell you that this table is made of pine."

If the practice doesn't work out, Matt thinks, he could always take this show on the road. Charge $5 a head. He loosens his tie, starts unbuttoning his shirt and untucks it from his pants. Opens it. It feels more than a little weird to be disrobing in front of Captain America, but needs must when the devil drives.

"Jesus. Those are knife wounds. Where did you get those?"

The echo makes Matt's chest ache. His point made, he buttons his shirt back up.

"Most of them trying to take down Fisk."

"I read about that." Steve asks. "Does anyone know?"

"My partner, Foggy. A couple of other people." He hesitates. "Bucky."

Steve goes very still. Inside his body everything is at attention, heart pounding, and Matt can sense how much control he's exercising not to... do whatever it is he'd like to do. Possibly punch Matt in the face. It would hardly be the first time. He makes a mental note to take off the glasses first so they don't get broken.

"Is this a joke?"

"No."

"Bucky Barnes has been dead for a long time, Mr Murdock."

"Has he?"

Again that surge in heart rate. There's heat in Steve's face. That's good. It's better that Steve knows, and that he won't admit he knows. That puts them on more or less equal footing.

"Tell me where he is," Steve says quietly.

It's a demand, and a plea. Any doubt he had that his Bucky is Steve's Bucky is gone.

"I can't."

" _Tell me_."

He's rising from the chair now, and Matt readies himself to dodge-- and if necessary, run for his life.

"I can't," he repeats. "I can't-- I don't know. We... we meet sometimes in a bar in Hell's Kitchen. He must have a safehouse somewhere in the city, but he's never told me, and I don't ask. I don't have any other way to communicate with him."

Matt nearly says _we always go back to my place_. He isn't going to tell Steve any more than he needs to know about the nature of their relationship. It's not that he's worried what Steve would think-- he's heard the anti-bullying PSAs-- but he's told Steve so much already. It feels like a betrayal to tell him about that too. Bad enough to know that Bucky wouldn't want him to be here.

Steve's state of alert eases up, and he slumps back in the chair. His hand fiddles with the phone on the table, spins it. It's a long time before he speaks.

"Is he okay?" he asks, nearly a whisper.

"As okay as can be expected. I'm just worried about him."

Steve huffs a breath through his nose. "Join the club." There's barely a beat before Steve asks, "How long? I mean, how long have you known him? You said you met him at a bar? I don't understand."

Matt shrugs. "A few weeks. We just kind of came across each other by accident. I didn't know who he was. Not until the other night."

"What happened?"

"Five men tried to... I don't know if they were trying to kill him or kidnap him or what. I heard it. I came to help. Turns out he didn't really need it."

"No. He wouldn't."

"I didn't realise until then that he was..."

"The Winter Soldier. Didn't you ever wonder why he had a bionic arm?"

Matt cocks his head. He shapes the words with his mouth. The Winter Soldier. Bucky does shiver sometimes in his sleep. His teeth chatter, even if the room is warm, and he can't seem to curl up tightly enough.

"Blind or not, sometimes we only see what we want to see."

"Does anyone else know?" Steve asks.

"Not a soul, apart from you." Matt rubs at his temple. "He's not... whatever happened, I don't know, but it's not him. He's not a monster."

"No. He isn't."

Hearing that, he knows he made the right decision coming here.

"I don't know what to do. You're the only one who can help me."

Steve sighs. He bends forward and runs his hands through his hair, a rustle and a whiff of beeswax.

"I'm not even sure if I can. I went halfway around the world looking for him, and he was right under my nose."

"Well, Bucky's not stupid. He's got military training, and whatever... they did to him."

Again that creaking of tendon as Steve clenches a fist.

"At least he's okay."

"For now," Matt says. "If someone sent people after him, someone knows he's here. He's in danger."

"Were they Hydra?"

"I don't know. I didn't stick around to find out."

Steve sighs. 

"I'm sorry you got mixed up in this."

Matt gives him a wry smile. It's not often that the people he lies to apologise to him.

"Getting mixed up in things is kind of what I do."

Steve nods.

"So I've heard. I've gotta admire your moxie."

Matt laughs a little.

"It means a lot to hear you say that. I think that's the first time someone's response to finding out hasn't involved the words _idiot_ , _stupid_ , or _get-yourself-killed_."

"Well, your friends are right: you should be more careful. Those knife wounds looked serious."

"I'll live. I have so far, at least."

"I find being alive is pretty helpful for getting things done," Steve says. He pauses. "I'm glad Bucky's okay. And that he has a friend."

"Sounds like he has more than one."


End file.
